Dubbed the Lighthouse, the 984-foot-high skyscraper will be designed by Thom Mayne and erected at La Defense, a complex of office towers in a business district west of Paris where many of France's major corporations are headquartered.

Mayne's design shows a building "curving asymmetrically upward, topped by a crown of spiky antennae." It's being billed as a "green" building, as the wind turbines on the roof will power the building's heating and cooling system for a part of the year. A retractable outer layer will reduce the heat from sunlight through the windows in summer.

Set for completion in 2012 and reported to cost upwards of $1 billion, the building will be shorter than the 1,062-foot Eiffel Tower but significantly taller than Paris' highest office building, the 688-foot Montparnasse Tower.

Ref: news.thomasnet.com